EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EVOLUTIONISTS 209 



they have been ahke produced from a similar hv- 

 ing filament. 



Having thus discussed some of the most ob- 

 vious arguments for mutability, he proceeds to 

 speculate upon the causes of these changes: 



All animals undergo perpetual transformations; 

 which are in part produced by their own exertions 

 . . . and many of these acquired forms or propen- 

 sities are transmitted to their posterity. [Italics my 

 own.] 



This, so far as I know, is the first clear and 

 definite statement of the theory of the transmis- 

 sion of acquired characters considered as one of 

 the causes of Evolution. We will now continue to 

 examine Darwin's argument, and later will illus- 

 trate his application of his theory of causation. 



He proceeds to discuss the wants of animals, 

 arranging them first under the head of sexual 

 characters, as, for example, horns and spurs de- 

 veloped for purposes of combat and of procuring 

 the females. Thus, the horns of the stag have not 

 been developed to protect him from the boar, but 

 from other stags ; he here misses the idea of the 

 sexual selection of the horns developed as orna- 

 ments to the male. Other organs, he says, are de- 

 veloped in the search for food; for example, 

 cattle have acquired rough tongues to pull oif 



